Ever wanted to see how your PC would do in the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica world, surviving the attack on the Twelve Colonies and fleeing with the rest of humanity to that distant, mythical place called Earth?

Ever watched the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica but were dissatisfied with the ending and wished for one that left you feeling better about all the time you invested into watching the show?

Ever wanted to be able to know more about the Colonies, as well as have one cohesive story and logic tying together the story elements from Caprica, some elements of BSG: Deadlock, Blood and Chrome, the Razor flashbacks, The Plan, Battlestar Galactica, and Razor?

If you said "Yes" to one, some, or all of those questions, this game is for you. So Say We All, Dong Ma? is a Cortex-system RPG game (using the BSG RPG rules with some serious House Rules to make the space combat "feel more BSG", along with some Assets and Complications from the Serenity RPG) that tries its best to build a complete world and let you play freely in it.

If you don't know or don't have the system, please just throw up a summary and give me a Mention asking for help. We'll work together to put your PCs together to your satisfaction, and I'll explain the important parts of the system's mechanics to you.

I'm more interested in a good story than power gaming. Good Role Playing will be rewarded.

Applications will be accepted at any time, although I intend to make selection in 60 days from January 2nd.

Game Description:

SO SAY WE ALL,DONG MA?

Meleager, or "Old Mel", is a Hunter-class Escortstar nominally assigned to BSG-75, technically under the command of Galactica and Commander Adama.

Meleager has been attached to the 24th Viper Training Squadron for the last seven years. Pilots in the final stages of their training are transferred to Meleager and her two accompanying vessels, Eleos and Fenris, for their final six months of qualification for combat landing and manuevering training, keeping the Nuggets from "bothering" the flight crews of the 'Combat Commands'...vessels such as Galactica, Pegasus, and the members of the various 120 other-some-odd Battlestar Groups of the Colonial Fleet.

Meleager is slated for decommisioning during the next six months to a year, and as such has become a low priority posting for the fleet and the needs of the Admiralty. Combined with a mid-space collision three months ago that killed or wounded a significant portion of its crew and damaged a little over a dozen various small craft, and the Meleager is notably understaffed. Nonetheless, her Commanding Officer, Major Ivana Deering, has been ordered to prepare for a transfer to command of the Spatha (a Gladius-class Gunstar) after it finishes its refit, and intends to take almost all of her crew with her, so readiness and morale remain high in anticipation of a mass-move into a bigger and better vessel.

'Old Mel' is quite understrength at the current time, notably due to the aforementioned circumstances. With only 416 crew (of her alotted 800), a short air group of 20 Vipers (most manned by Nuggets), and a single flight of Raptors, the ship, though maintained as well as possible by Major Deering, is not quite up to full fighting strength. While she is capable of handling the pirates that plague the Erebos Belt or even a couple of pitched wartime battles, her dearth of personnel and small craft would doom her quickly if the war resumed...unless she found additional personnel and small craft in short order.

Meleager is currently on the outskirts of the Erebos Belt, conducting training missions in the fringes of the asteroids; today is the day that Galactica retires and then proceeds to Caprica to meet up with an honor guard composed of most of the Colonial Fleet to be escorted to its final resting place in orbit as a 'living museum'.

<<APPLICATIONS ARE WELCOME AT ANY TIME>> Please, feel free to join in.

Concept

The game should be considered 'fanon' in all senses rather than 'canon'. In point of fact, most Colonial Fleet ships other than Battlestars, Vipers, and Raptors are purely speculation in view of the re-imagined series. However, the game will attempt to stay within the bounds of the 'feeling' of the re-imagined BSG series. Note, I am incorporating some of what we saw in Caprica as well as Razor, The Plan and Blood and Chrome, and I'm even drawing some elements from Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock; while there are still the same number of 'skinjobs', things will not go down the same path as the series as the campaign progresses. This is a 'possibility'--just as equally valid--as what we saw. After all, "All this has happened before, and will happen again." Nowhere was it ever said it happened the same way.

This game is aiming to give the players and PCs a view of the world of the Second Cylon War from a different angle, looking to give the players that 'feel' while still giving them something new. This is going to be a relatively malleable campaign...

Mechanics

This will be played with the Battlestar Galactica RPG, although traits from the Serenity RPG are allowed with GM approval. There are several House Rules in effect to modify the general fragility of ships in the Cortex system, as well as to deal with things such as Point Defense and the numerous batteries of weapons in BSG.

Characters are using Modified Recruit-level and submitted in the Applications folder in the Game Forum. Please read the Application Standards and Summaries thread for details and templates for PC creation. Players will be moderately-senior Fleet/Marines Officers/Enlisted or Civilians that end up in vicinity of/on the Escortstar Meleager in the Erebos Belt of the Helios Alpha subsystem on the day that the original Battlestar Galactica, BS 75, retires. This would also be the day that the Cylons are putting 'The Plan' into action...well, depending on the Cylon Faction, 'The Plan' Varies. What the PCs do can affect (although neither stop nor fully negate) the Cylon attack on the Colonies.

For major decisions--such as what the Meleager (and any ships with her, or ships she is with) will do in the aftermath of the attack, or how a given event takes place--the players vote in the OOC Thread on one of several options. Simple majority (or a plurality if there is no majority) carries, although reasonable compromises combining elements from several options (and explaining how they will do X) reached between the players and presented to the GM is also accepted.

Links

Fan-made resources in use for this game; take ideas freely from this, but please check agains the 'Resources' Folder (all of it) on the forum, and ask any questions you want first, as well as run any radical ideas not covered in the forum by the GM (i.e., write it up then ask me about it in your private Application thread or the Application OOC). While many thanks are due to the team that put together these useful resources together, I have a fairly clear picture of how the Colonial--and Cylon--'war machines' work. It is based on what we see in the series, combined with ideas from these three books, and then shaped with practical knowledge of what an actual, functional military takes to work...so there are differences to these books. I've tried to cover all those differences in the thread Colonial Defense Forces - Pertinent Notes.Colonial Warbook IIe (Hunter Class is on p 116.)The Thin Blue LineAres Guide to Infantry Weapons of the Colonies

This is the map that is based on the writers' notes and 'bible' for the new BSG; we are using this as opposed to the MWP-produced map. (This one makes a great deal more sense.)Detailed Map of the Twelve Colonies

@serenflipity Keep in mind, I've adjusted the CDF Ranks some. Unless she is suddenly a Raptor Pilot, your other PC doesn't have to be her wingman; it might be entertaining if it was someone like the new Deck Chief or the Special Weapons Technician. But that is entirely up to you.